


Bad End

by OtterMcKilbourne (p_3a)



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Bad Ending, Corruption, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:03:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5102162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/p_3a/pseuds/OtterMcKilbourne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Burning Legion captured Anduin Wrynn with the intent of breaking the resistance’s morale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad End

**Author's Note:**

> copy-pasted directly from an old-ass blogpost of mine with no formatting changes; apologies for spelling/grammar/tenses. just take it as stylistic tbh

the Burning Legion captured Anduin Wrynn with the intent of breaking the resistance’s morale

when torturing him elicited no reaction, and only spurred everyone to fight harder, they switched tactics. they pulled his head back, forcefully opened his mouth, and poured demon’s blood down his throat until he had to swallow or drown in it. they made him drink for a long time.

 

he grew spiked wings like a fel elf, four horns from his head and spikes on his shoulders, fangs in his mouth and pointed ears. his skin grew grey and his eyes glowed a dangerous turquoise. his nails grew to claws and his feet elongated to digitigrade, with a small tail beginning to from when they finally let him stop drinking

he fought with the strength of ten men when they put him on the battlefield. they let him keep his headband and his royal sigil. it worked. they won every battle they sent him to.

until one; the one varian and wrathion had worked for weeks to plan. they captured him, and they put him in the dungeon underneath Stormwind Keep until the felblood worked its way out of his system.

it took three. long. years. both varian and wrathion visited him regularly. so did various maids, guards, caretakers, shaman, priests. velen. to this day he remembers every single word that was said to him when he was chained up to the wall there. comfortable, but secure.

mostly, it was people telling him how much they hated him. asking how he could betray them. asking what hope there could be if even Anduin of Light could be corrupted. telling him that their cousin’s friend’s sister had been slaughtered by him on the battlefield. and of course, he’s spitting vitriol at them and cursing in eredun and telling them how the world will burn.

he makes wrathion cry, with some of the things he says. not that the dragon sheds tears while he’s in the room with him, but when he leaves, when he runs into varian outside anduin’s cell, he breaks down. varian does something he never thought he’d do - he hugs the Black Prince. wrathion does something he never thought he’d do - he cries into somebody’s shoulder other than anduin’s.

one day, when they open the cell door, all they can hear is pitiful wailing, and they know anduin’s back.

he’s restored to his old quarters. his body does not go back to how it was. his mind doesn’t, either, not straight away. Left is the only one who recognises the Lethargy. she volunteers to be the one to care for him; wrathion gives her leave to do so.

she force-feeds him. she forces him to sit up and use the chamber-pot. she forces him to walk across the room at least once a day. he fights her, but she overpowers him easily, even though his muscle mass is still vastly superior to hers. he sobs as she makes him eat. his tears burn her flesh. she ignores it.

it occurs to Right and Wrathion that they don’t know anything about left. they don’t know how old she is. they don’t know if she had a family. it becomes obvious when, one day, Anduin is distressed, crying that he feels so empty, without the Light. Left explains this is normal. it’s how the demons try to lure you back. you can’t fill the void with Light, so you turn back and try to fill it with demons’ blood. He says he wants to die.

She tells him, “No. Not again.”

He stares. Right stares. She knows she fucked up.

She tells Right, later, she had a daughter. She was too young. Both of them were too young. Left was barely an adult when her child killed herself. She cries when she talks about it. Right never brings it up again.

After a year, Left enters Anduin’s room to find him with tears running down his face and a halo of light around his horned head, and she knows the Lethargy has ended. she doesn’t tell varian or wrathion - she lets them find out of their own accord. she’s proud of anduin. while he’s asleep that night, she says goodbye to him, and relinquishes her leave, returning to being wrathion’s bodyguard full-time.

Anduin’s beaming when he tells his father he’s back.

he’s beaming when he greets his people again for the first time in four years. he’s wearing priest regalia, but he looks monstrous. wrathion takes a half-form to show solidarity; with his long horns jutting elegantly from his forehead, his spined tail laying heavily on the ground behind him, wings wider than his armspan spread to encompass anduin’s shoulder and smile on his scaled face.

when they return inside, anduin breaks down. wrathion shields them both from view with his wings and kisses his grey face and pointed ears. anduin’s claws dig grooves into wrathion’s scaled shoulders. wrathion doesn’t care.

the first time they have sex after anduin’s transformation is five years after he was forced to drink the blood. they stop half-way through; anduin is too good at telling when wrathion’s hurting, and he’s hurt him by accident one too many times. he curls in a spiked ball in the corner and demands wrathion to leave.

wrathion tries to hug him three, four times, but gets a face full of wing every attempt.

anduin tells him that he’s hurting him too much. to leave and not come back.

wrathion asks him what he’s saying.

anduin tells him he heard him.

wrathion tells him he’s going to ask one more time if he can hug him, and then he’s going to leave, and not return to the capital on anything other than business until anduin specifically sends for him.

anduin tells him to leave.

wrathion turns his broken heart to fury, and uses it to push the Legion back. one day, they capture him, too. this time, they’re smart enough not to try to corrupt him.

left and right put crossbow bolts through the necks of his assassins half a second too late.

\--

imagine the look on anduin’s face when left and right return alone (right looks ten years older; left looks the same as always) and calmly inform him that the Black Prince is no more

“He– what?” the pit of his stomach just drops out “No– no!”

grabs Left by the shoulders (his claws draw blood) and his eyes glow dangerously “That /can’t/ be true! Take me to him! Take me to him right now!”  
“We never retrieved the body, your Highness.”  
“You WHAT?!” he feels the bloodlust rising in his throat. left sees it in his eyes and before he can speak again she has him face-down in the dirt, knee in the small of his back, both his hands pinned behind his shoulderblades and his wings flapping frantically and legs kicking out. “Let me go!! Unhand me this instant!!”  
“No.”  
Right just covers her eyes with her hand and tries really hard not to show any emotion  
“We have to get him /back/!”  
“Anduin, there is no /him/. That’s a /shell/ they have. It has no use now. Only ruin can come to trying to retrieve it.”  
“I don’t care!!” He’s sobbing now; Left’s grip doesn’t relent. “I want him /back/!”

from then on, left and right lead the blacktalons alone; but take it in turns to guard anduin. he’s _their_ baby now.


End file.
